Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith - Physician, Author, Speaker, Mom - Talking to Cool People w/ Jason Frazell

Episode Transcript
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Jason Frazell (00:11):
Hey, everybody.
I am very excited about thisone.
And I have a little story toshare.
My guest today is Dr.
Sondra Dalton Smith.
We got, Dr.
Sondra, we got connected througha mutual friend, our friend,
Mike Kim.
And, and then two weeks ago, Igot connected with you again,
virtually without you knowingabout it.
And it was so cool.
I was on a call with some dearfriends of mine and we get

(00:33):
together once a month and wejust support each other in our
business and in our life.
And my friend Marie says, shegoes, Oh, I've been working with
a rest coach and you have totake this quiz.
It's so powerful.
It's by this amazing woman.
Her name is Sondra Dalton Smith.
I said, I said, what?
And then I say, seriously, shegoes, yeah, I'd like to, you
know, where I go, I'm like,well, I'm interviewing on my
podcast next week.

(00:54):
And this literally happened lastweek.
I was just telling Dr.
Sondra, I've taken your restquiz.
So first I want to give it, it'sa great, it's a great snapshot
of where you might be doing wellin your, Seven areas of rest and
where you might have some thingsto work on, which we're going to
talk about today.
So I was introduced to yourwork, not just looking at your
website, but then from somebodywho also knows your work.

(01:15):
And it's just such an honor tobe here.
And it was just like such a coolmoment for me.
So Dr.
Sandra, welcome.
So Dr.
Sandra is, she is a doctor.
She is a physician.
She's a CEO of Restorist, whichwe're going to talk about what
that is, and she is an author ofSacred Dress.
Good morning and welcome to you.

Dr. Saundra (01:32):
Hi, Jason.
Great to be here with you.

Thank you so much.
I'm really excited about thisone.
So, you know, a lot of, a lot ofthe things we talk about in the
show are related to mindset andperformance.
And one of the things we haven'tyet talked about on the show is
the concept of rest as a way toincrease performance.
And this is a thing thatintellectually, I think most of

(01:55):
us know, understand, and we ofcourse feel.
And then how many people do youknow that say, Boy, I'm feeling
really rested or I'm feelingmentally and emotionally and
physically rested.
And that's one of the thingsI'll just give a shout out again
to the quiz.
It gives you some other, it'slike creative rest.
That's an interesting thing thatmost people don't think about.
So today, Dr.
Sandra and I, we're going totalk about her work around.

(02:18):
The concept of rest, why itmatters, how it is something
that we likely don't, most of usdon't do enough of and why it
actually matters to get the mostthat you want out of life.
We're not just talking aboutsleep here.
Although sleep is obviously abig part of it.
But Dr.
Sondra, before we get into thetopic of rest, I'd love to hear
a little bit about your journey.
So you're obviously a physicianand you're also the CEO of a

(02:39):
wellness company.
Let's talk a little bit aboutyour background and what led you
to that entrepreneurial journey.

Yeah.
So 20 years in clinicalpractice.
That was where I burned out isabout 10 years into it and
actually it was right around thetime I had kids.
So so it was in clinicalpractice, everything's going
well, 50, 60 hours, no problem.
And then my husband and Idecided that we wanted to start
a family and we had two childrenback to back, very close, 21

(03:05):
months apart.
And I had no clue how much workkids were.
So it was like taking on Twoother full time jobs.
And during that time that Iburned out, I still wanted to
stay in the profession at thatpoint.
So the research, all the workaround rest was really a self
preservation opportunity for me.
It was just trying to figure outhow do I stay in this very high
pressure high hours.

(03:27):
Career and feel good andactually have energy for my
family and my husband And sothat's where the research and
all of that began my backgroundsin biochemistry.
So when there's a problem youresearch it out Absolutely.
And so that's where it startedand as I put out the information
as the book sacred rest gapPublished and people started
hearing about the seven types ofrest.

(03:48):
Honestly, it started to take alife of its own.
I got to this place where I wasgetting invites from these
corporations to come and trainpeople.
And I'm still in my practicefull time when this was
happening.
And it got to a position whereit kind of came to a boiling
point.
And a decision had to be madewhether or not to stay full time
within clinical practice or tobranch out into the unknown with

(04:11):
entrepreneurship.
And so that's where RestoreAssist was birthed.
It's a workplace well beingconsulting agency.
Doing that now for five years,still do some clinical practice,
weaved in there more on a parttime basis cause I still love
that part of it, but I just getto affect so many more people.
I mean, when you're working withhuge companies, you get to
affect so many more lives.

(04:32):
Thanks.

Yeah.
Also, a couple other benefitsthat I would guess is you don't
have to deal with the Americanmedical system and insurance
companies.
And yes, corporations can bechallenging to deal with, but
you get to go in and bring inyour expertise without a lot of
the extra administrative things.

So true.

Yeah.

Yeah.
You're, you're absolutely right.
So true.
Because even with when, whenyou're sharing something that is
not a pill, there's not really alot of time within a normal
physician 15 minute visit toactually share preventative type
strategies.
So you're absolutely right.
Yeah.
Yeah.

I want to ask you about burnout.
I've had a few guests on,including my friend, Ken
Murawski was on late last year.
And this is one of the thingsthat he talks a lot about as
well.
I always like to ask folks andthey say, and I was burnt out.
And this relates to the work youdo now.
How did you know you were burntout?
Because I hear that in America,and you may know about this more

(05:27):
than I do in America, that termgets thrown around quite a bit.
And I have a friend who's Germanand she tells me in Germany,
that is a diagnosis like you at,like, if you, like, you just
don't go out and say, Oh, I'm,I'm burnt out in America, like,
Oh, I'm so burnt out, but peoplearen't.
So how did you know you wereburnt out?
Or what was that experience likefor you?

Yeah, well, that's the thing.
The World Health Organizationactually does have a
classification and some specificcheckpoints that you must meet
to be able to say that you'reclinically burned out.
And they, three things include,number one is being tired all
the time.
And so for a lot of people,that's all that they need.
They use that one criteria andthey say the right out number
two is that you no longer havejoy for the work that you're

(06:07):
doing.
It's not just that you'reoverwhelmed is that you actually
no longer enjoy something thatyou were passionate about.
And number three is that thework that you produce is of a
lesser quality of what you knowyou're capable of.
And so as a physician, I knewwhat I was capable of as the
type and the quality ofhealthcare that I provided.
And when I saw myself kind oftaking shortcuts and I see

(06:29):
myself, you know, Oh, I don'tneed to check the labs twice a
day on this patient in thehospital.
I can check it once a daybecause that's good enough,
right?
Well, it's not my standard, soit's not good.
It's not the best I can do.
And so when you start seeingyourself checking off those
three areas, you're moving intoburnout.
And I knew for myself that I wasgoing into burnout when I have,

(06:50):
I'm a very compassionate,emphatic type person.
When I got to the point whereeven seeing and treating sick
people was ticking me off.
That's a wet flap.
I see so many of my physicianfriends and they're complaining
about the patients andcomplaining about the nurses and
everything, you know, ishorrible.
And I get it.
Health care is hard.
You know, a lot of professionsare hard, but when you don't

(07:12):
even like the people you'reserving, that's an issue.

Yeah.
That's so interesting to thinkof it.
I've never heard it describedquite that way with those three
different things.
And I, I think in culture, wesee this sometimes with
musicians and athletes andpeople that on the outside would
be like, well, it would be socool to play football, but they
say, Hey, I'm just burnt out.
I'm not enjoying the sportanymore.
I'm not enjoying playing.
I'm not enjoying playing musicor I'm not enjoying acting.

(07:37):
And then they go away.
And that's so interesting howthat can happen to any of us,
even from the outside, lookingin some of those things would be
like, well, that would be mydream job, but it wouldn't be,
but it doesn't feel that way tothem.
So interesting.
So then you got present to that.
And at the time in your, in yourclinical practice, you weren't
really doing anything aroundRuss specifically.
You were just practicingphysician and you hit the wall.

(08:01):
And you said, Hey, there's gotto be more to understand about
this is what I'm hearing.
And the next thing, what's thenext thing you did then?

Yeah.
So that's, that's exactly right.
I hit the wall and, you know, asI'm an internal medicine
physician, which means I work inthe, I have a practice, right.
And then I work in the hospital,the ER, the ICU.
And so.
Okay.
Cool.
Bye.
The way I approached it was I'mtired, so I must need more
sleep.
I mean, that's what I'm trained.
That's how the world trained.

(08:29):
I'm tired.
I need more sleep.
And so that's where I started.
I was like, okay, I got thesekids now and that's what's
keeping me from sleeping.
I'm going to figure it out andget eight hours of sleep every
single night.
And I did that.
You know, I found a way to geteight hours of sleep most days
of the week.
And I was still waking upexhausted.

Yeah.

And that's when the red flags went off.
Cause it was like, okay, there'ssomething else going on here.
I'm getting more than I've nevergot eight hours of sleep since,
since before college.
So, so I was getting way moresleep than I'd ever gotten in my
entire life.
And I was still exhausted.
So I started checking all theblood work.
That's the benefit of being aphysician.
I don't have to, I'm in aposition on practice.

(09:12):
I can check what I want.
Cause it's my bill, right?
Yeah.
I checked all the tests thateven a sleep study, all the
things, and I am perfectlyhealthy, nothing's wrong with
me.
My thyroid, my adrenals, mycortisol levels, my, I checked
everything.
And that's a very desperatesituation when you have checked
all the things that clinicallyare supposed to help you get a

(09:32):
diagnosis and then there's nodiagnosis.
I knew this wasn't in my head,you know, it wasn't my hormones.
It was not in my head.
So at that point, it's like,there's something out there that
is not being defined and Ican't, I can't.
But take a pill for it because Ican't even figure out what it
is.
And so that was my mission fromthat point on, figure out what

(09:54):
this is.
And it started with justevaluating.
Okay.
If I'm so tired, I startedasking myself, what kind of
tired am I?
And that's when the game changedbecause it was like, I know I'm
tired, but what is this?

And Dr.
Sunder, that is an amazingquestion.
How many people have ever askedthemselves, What kind of tired
am I?
You never hear anybody go, Imean, every now and again people
go, I'm mentally tired.
But most people go, I'm tired.
And, I can say for myself, formyself sometimes, I've had the
experience to where I try to getgood physical rest, but, you
know, there's, there's timeswhen I'm like, I don't feel like

(10:27):
I've gotten a good night's sleepin a year.
Because it's not just the sleep.
It's the other things.
Man, I love that question.
My challenge for everybodylistening is really think to
yourself how, like, what kind oftired are you?
And that's going to lead us intotalking now, Dr.
Sondra, about what you define asthe seven different types of

(10:49):
rest.
So let's go through the seven,and then I've got, I've got some
questions about each of those,and we'll just kind of dig in a
little bit on those and as wesee fit.
Your model, there's sevendifferent types of rest.
First of all, let's define them.
What are they?

Yeah, and let me say this.
When this started, there wasprobably like 50 types of the
way the process began is I satdown and so when I asked myself
that question, I sat downliterally with a yellow legal
pad and I was just writing like,like, okay, what I was basically
going through my day.

(11:23):
And every time I ask questions,it's all about questions.
I was asking myself, what kindof energy am I using for this?
What kind of energy am I usingfor that?
Because my thought process was,if I'm using energy, then that
can be depleted.
If I'm not doing something topour energy back into that same
area that is being used.
So I was just writing down allthe different ways I was using

(11:44):
energy.
And, and what I saw was as Istarted to kind of group some of
the ways together where thingswere sounding really similar,
that's where it came to theseven.
So that's where they came from.
And so the seven types includephysical, mental, spiritual,
emotional, social, sensory, andcreative.
And so each of those, most ofthem are, are exactly like it

(12:05):
sounds that some that peoplehave lots of questions about are
the mental and emotional, thefact that I divided those.
I'll.
Because, and we can go intodepth with it, but because there
are two different halves of yourbrain that are functioning and
you use that energy in differentways and different situations

(12:25):
from the, you know, the mentalclarity, reasoning,
concentration part of the brainversus the relational emotional
aspect of the brain.
So I separated them out becausewe use the word mental health.
However, that's emotional restin my book and the mental is
more the clarity and thereasoning.
Thank you.

Yeah, man, there's, I have so many
questions about these, so Ithink if, let's go through each
of these and I was going tospark this here.
So the physical, I think.
I'm going to speak for myself,that's the physical feeling of
being tired or being tired fromexercise, like actually that
your physical being has fatigueof some type.

Yeah.
So so in sacred rest, the way Ibreak it down is that the
physical has two differentcomponents.
It has the passive and theactive and the passive component
of physical rest includes thingslike sleeping and napping.
And then the active component ofphysical rest includes all of
those things that improve howyour body feels like your
circulation, your lymphaticdrainage, your muscle

(13:25):
flexibility.
So, you know, walk leisure walksand yoga and stretching and foam
rollers and body ergonomics asit relates to your office space,
all of those things kind of fallinto that physical rest.

So yeah, the physical rest, which is the one
that I think most people talkabout when they say they're
tired.
It's usually either mental,maybe emotional, or physical.
So now let's talk aboutEmotional fatigue, emotional
tiredness, what is the, what'sthe, in your research or any

(13:59):
other research that's out there,how do we deplete that?
Because I, I relate to these asalmost like the five love
languages where you have a, youhave a container, you have a
container for each of thesethings and either, either
filling them up or depletingthem at all times.
So the emotional, the emo, let'sgo to the emotional next.
How do we deplete that one?
And then of course I'm going toask you, how might we fill that
thing back up?

Yeah, so that's actually the one that I was
deficient in, and so it was nowonder I was always tired
because that was the one I was,I had no system in place for
actually filling back up.
And so I'll give an example for,for me, the emotional rest
deficit that I developed wasfrom something I call
professional emotional labor.

(14:39):
And it's easier if I describethis there.
I'll give an example thatprobably everybody has
experienced first and then apersonal example.
The first example would be ifyou're some, if you're like,
we've all been on the planewhere, you know, someone's had
too many of the drinks and nowthey're like, Belligerent and
the rude to the flight attendantand the flight attendant is all

(15:00):
smiles.
Great customer service.
Yes, sir.
No, sir.
And you know, that's not how sheactually is feeling.
That's not the actual emotion.
There's a level ofprofessionalism that's requiring
her to be inauthentic with heremotions in the moment to uphold
a level of professionalism.
Well, we've all experiencedthat, whether that's your
customer service or whatever.

(15:20):
Well, for myself.
As a physician, like I said,with internal medicine, I'm
oftentimes in critical care typesituations, while I live in a
small town.
So when I see someone in theICU, this isn't a stranger to
me.
I'm not a hospitalist, I'm atraditionalist, meaning I see
them in the office and in thehospital.
So this is someone who's afriend, oftentimes that's in

(15:42):
that bed at the end of life.
I'm also an empath.
Which means that I feel thingsvery deeply.
And so when they're in that bed,that's my friend dying, but you
will never see a teardrop frommy eye.
I will stay 100 percentprofessional because that is the
role that I must remain in toserve that patient, their
family, and my nursing staff.

(16:02):
However, there is a professionalweight attached to that.
I am having to fight everythingin me to not release those
emotions.
That is professional emotionallabor.
Emotional rest is having aplace, a time, a person, where I
can release and be veryauthentic, real, and raw about
what I'm feeling.
Not having to hide them, nothaving to cover them up, not

(16:25):
having to make, you know, putmakeup on them and make it
easier for someone else todigest.
And a lot of people don't havethat.
Sometimes they fear that if theyshare those things, that it'll
be trauma dumping.
But emotional rest and traumadumping aren't the same things.
Trauma dumping would be me goingto my husband and saying, you
know, Hey, this is what theywere wearing.

(16:46):
And this is the color of theirgown.
And this is what the cancerlooked like.
And, you know, and painting thislike Netflix picture in his mind
so that he got the running movieof the scene.
That's bringing him into thetrauma with me.
None of us want to do that withpeople we care about.
Emotional rest is me actually isway more raw and authentic and
vulnerable than that is actuallyharder than that.

(17:07):
It would be me saying You knowsomething along the lines of I
feel I felt helpless.
There's nothing I can do

Mm

hmm Years of training and I sat there and all
I could do was hold her hand andI wanted to weep But I had to
fight that back and just beingreal raw and vulnerable in the
moment That's where we get theemotional rest

and you get the emotional rest back fills fills
that back up.
I As you were talking aboutthis, this reminds me of, I was
watching, it was a, it's calledHomicide.
It's on Netflix.
It's, and it was about differentcases in New York City, like
really like scary, like murdercases.
And they were interviewing thedetectives 20 years later, and
they're talking about how youjust have to block it out.

(17:50):
You walk into these things thatmost of us never see and you
just have to go, I need to putthat up and how exhausting that
is.
And how if you don't have anoutlet, like an outlet and there
are, and to your point, Dr.
Sandra, I think there's, there'ssome positive outlets and then
there's a whole lot of negativeoutlets there.
Drinking, addiction, All theseother things that people use to

(18:11):
blow, call it blow off steamthat are actually probably make
you more tired, but they feelgood.
They feel good for a minuteversus what I hear is the
healthy of not dumping thetrauma, but just refilling
yourself by connecting withsomebody that's going to hold
your emotions because you'vedone that for everybody else.

Exactly.

Yeah.
Well, I was going to ask aboutthis one because I know you
obviously do a lot of work withcorporations.
How does this go in the businessworld?
Because people have tons of bigemotions in the business world.
And most companies I know it'sreally not that invited.
So I'm really curious now aboutthis emotional one.
I think this leads into mentalis the other one.
People get very tired at work ishow does this relate in the

(18:51):
business world?
And I want to speak specificallyto people that are people
leaders.
Yeah.
And maybe need to bring a littlebit more of this to their, to
their folks to, one, to driveperformance, but also just be
good humans to each other.

Absolutely.
And this, this is, this isactually what we do within
resources that's Mm-Hmm.
the love, the love that I'mhaving right now is that bridge,
because what we're finding is alot, oftentimes when we're
brought into an organization,we're bringing, brought in
during a.
Change status.
So there's an acquisition,there's a merger, there's a
change in leadership.
And the problem is everybody inthe company has emotions around

(19:25):
it.
And unless leaders understandhow to engage emotion in a safe
Space so that people don't feellike their jobs at jeopardy.
It's very difficult for thecompany to have any movement.
Everybody's kind of on edge.
And when people are on edge,there's a mass exodus usually in
most companies when thathappens, because nobody likes
the pressure of consistent,emotional, professional labor.

(19:49):
And so we have to help primarilywhat we end up having to do is
to help the leaders understandhow to introduce the
conversation so that you canbegin to create those safe
spaces.
And a part of that is by owningup to what the emotion is.
And so saying, rather thantrying to act like nobody's
stressed, saying, I get, I getthis is, I get this is a little

(20:11):
stressful and that there'schange that's happening.
What are some ways that we canapproach this change and then
start helping people by buildingup some of the soft skills that
nobody is trained on in college,so college teaches us all of the
details and nobody trains anyoneon the soft skills of
adaptability, communication.

(20:33):
Self awareness.
These are things that people,leaders have to know and to have
a healthy team, they have toknow these things as well.
And so it's, that's a big partof the process, walking people
through that, building outwellness initiatives.
And I know when I say wellnessinitiative, people think, Oh,
you mean like my Days off andPTO, those things are fantastic.

(20:54):
So yeah, enjoy all of that.
But I'm talking about actuallythe interpersonal wellness
initiative so that you actuallybuild a healthy team and healthy
leaders.

Yeah.
Thanks Dr.
Sandra.
How I'm the audience can't seethis, but I'm smiling because I
heard a story from a client ofmine where they, she works at a
large corporation and they hadan E, an EAP speaker come in,
like an inner site employee forthose who don't know what that
is.
employee assistance program andit was an external speaker and
they were talking about mindsetand dealing with change.

(21:25):
The advice that this speakergave was, Oh, when you're
feeling negative thoughts orthoughts that stress you out,
just change your mindset.
And I said, that is one of theworst pieces of advice I've ever
heard because it was that easy.
We wouldn't what we just do thisall the time that completely
discounts past based trauma.
Your feelings about things andalso your and what I'm hearing

(21:46):
in all of this is if you'reemotionally tired That's hard to
do.
It's that's an easier changingyour mindset.
I'll speak just for myself hereIt's much easier for me to shift
into a different gear That'smore I think more productive if
I'm not feeling tired mostlybecause that is a heavy lift for
me.
That's a big And for mostpeople, I'd say that is a big
emotional drain that then cansource me back up.

(22:07):
But I just thought that was sofunny that like there's so much
bad advice about they're outthere about change and change
management and addressing thesesort of things that is so basic
and just, and I'm sure you're,I'm sure you've heard these
things too, from, there's areason people bring your, you
and your company in, causethey're like, this stuff doesn't
work.
Especially when you tell me,Hey, change your mindset.
You go, Oh, really?
Thanks so much.
That's really, really helpful.
Thank you.

You know, but it's really interesting though, cause
there's some companies that arekilling it.
They are, they are 100 percenton board.
They understand the process, butone of the, the probably the
biggest battles I find arecompanies who.
who basically want a quick fixfor something that is take, it's
no different than me telling adiabetic, you're going to have
to change your diet.
I can't say that one time andthen it's done.

(22:50):
I have to give the, the kind ofthe 10, 000 foot view of why
we're doing something.
And then we have to actually putit into practice.
If it was medicine with adiabetic, I then got to show
them some recipes that You know,what can you have if you can't
have that Snickers?
I got to get some, some optionson ways of satisfying a craving

(23:11):
or whatever that is to replaceit.
It's no different in the officespace.
And so we're oftentimes havingto, to do a little bit of, um.
Kind of detective work withcompanies, cause they love to
invite you in for like the onetime went off town hall talk.
We did it! Yeah, we checked itout.
We supported our

employees.

And I always have to let them know that this is
the 10, 000 foot view.
I think what would actuallyserve them is if I actually get
on the ground level with them.
And I would actually talk aboutwhat do you do when you are
These things are happening, whatare the actual strategies and
tactics that can be done in themoment, in the middle of their
day, to input restorativepractices, because that's

(23:52):
really, I mean, that's what thebook Sacred Rest is about, every
single type of rest I talkabout, I give three different
ways of actually implementingit, and there's hundreds of
ways, but I, it's like, wepicked the top three that I
think people would actuallybegin to benefit from, and take
them through the process,because unless you get on the
ground level, it's all justtheory, It actually isn't

(24:13):
implemented yet.

Yeah, I was, you know, I do, I do coaching work
and I would say awareness is, isfun, but who cares?
Oh, so now I'm aware I'm moretired and I'm, I have your rest
quiz pulled up here because I'mlooking at my results as we're
talking through this right now.
I was like, Oh, I realized thatI'm a little more emotionally
tired than I thought I was.
So what?

(24:35):
If I don't know what to do withthat, then now I just, for me,
I'm always like, Oh, likesomething I need to fix, but I
don't know what to do with that.
So we're going to talk aboutthat in a little, we're going to
talk about some of the specificways to address some of these
things, but I want to go, I wantto go through the rest of these
too, because they're all to me,they're all so fascinating and
now we're going to get it.
So we've talked about physical.
We've talked about I thinkmental and emotional.

(24:57):
You said there are two separateparts of the brain, but they're
similar in that we, they comefrom our brain.
Now we've got four other onesthat.
I had never heard, I had neverthought about it, and I'm sure
you get this all the time.
You're like, oh, I've neverreally thought about that.
So let's talk about spiritualrest score.
So when you talk about spiritualrest score, let's define what
that means.
What the term spiritual in thiscontext and then what you mean

(25:19):
by that.

Yeah.
So spiritual rest I, it'sdifferent for each person really
just depending on what theirbelief systems are.
So at the very core of spiritualrest is the need that we all
have to feel as if our life hasmeaning, purpose, value, that we
are giving back to the greatergood.
Our need for belonging and loveand acceptance, all of that
falls into spiritual rest.

(25:41):
And so whether someone gets thatin a faith based system and
faith based type community, orthey get that through causes or
different things that they areaffiliated with, it includes
things like volunteerism, youknow, the, the good feeling, so
to speak, you get when you'vedone good to somebody else who
can't really do something foryou when you're a voice for the
voiceless or you are, you knowhelping and serving in some type

(26:04):
of way.
That's what I'm referring to.
It's that filling back up thatcomes.
And, and the thing, I think thata lot of people have trouble
with when we talk, when I talkabout restorative practices and
rest is because oftentimes wethought of rest as cessation,
stopping, sitting still.
And so our brain says rest, Oh,that's sleep.
That's not doing anything.

(26:25):
That's sitting around, you know,cessation, but really rest is
about restorative practices.
It is.
What pours back into thatbucket.
And so oftentimes it's not justsitting still, it's actually
doing something that fills youback up.

Yeah.
I mentioned earlier, my friendKent Murawski, he was a pastor
for 15 years.
And you probably know this andperhaps have talked to people
who do.
church work, pastors arenotorious for getting burnt out.
And as I'm looking at this list,I'm like, oh yeah, that would
make sense because they'reconstantly supporting other
people's emotions, constantlygiving, giving, giving.

(27:03):
And Kent talks about this, hegoes, but I wasn't sourcing
myself.
And so I reached an area ofburnout for myself.
And he, for him, The result ofhaving what I would say, and in
your quiz, a higher score, ahigher score is like a higher
blood pressure.
You don't want it, you want, youwant the lower, you want the
lower score in this one.

You got it, that's right.

You got, yeah, you want the lower score in this
one, is that he said he ended upon the floor like sobbing after
meeting with one of his peoplein his church, and he didn't
know why.
And I would assert that that'sprobably because many of his
scores were like, if you're hisdoctor, you say these indicators
are not good, my friend, we needto get you on some sort of
treatment.
So I think about that inwhatever profession you're in,

(27:43):
how some of these things aregoing to be probably more
relevant than others.
And that leads me to the nextone, which is also fascinating.
And I'll own, I'm a completeextrovert and I love people.
And this one is social.
So your social rest score and mysocial rest score, I spent a lot
of time with a lot of peoplehave two kids and a wife, and my

(28:04):
social rest score was my secondlowest score.
So I'm curious about that one.
So that one to me seems verydependent on personality,
introversion, extroversion.
You know, some people, I knowpeople that are like, I think
all people are punks and theydon't like them.
I'm like, I kind of think allpeople, most people are punks,
but I love them anyway.
So that one is so interesting tome.
And I hear this from clients allthe time.

(28:25):
He said, I just need a breakfrom the people on my team, or I
just need a break from my boss,or I just need a break from the
constant like people part of mywork.
So let's define social and wherethat one has the variability in
it.
Cause it seems that one seemsvery different depending on the
person.

Yeah, it, it does have some, some differences, but
social rest at the, at the coreof it is the, is each of us need
to have people in our life thatare.
Life giving that are actuallypouring back into us.
Majority of the people in ourlives are negatively pulling
from our social energy.
They need things from us.
Gimme, gimme, gimme.

(29:01):
Who in your life does not needanything from you?
You know, a lot of statisticsshow that adults have fewer
adult friends now than ever.
And I'm not talking about COVID.
The statistics started beforeCOVID.
We are just, we're focused onfamily and work.
So that's where we spend all ofour time.
And oftentimes thoserelationships can get very one
sided, even within your ownhome.

(29:22):
Oh, people can get into asituation where you're always
giving and you never arereceptive to being on the
receiving end within your socialrelationship at home.
So that's really the basis ofthat social rest, the need to
be.
Kind of have life giving peoplethat are pouring back into you.
And so people who are introvertsand extroverts, they require

(29:45):
different levels of this.
Like introverts are really goodwith being by themselves and,
but they still need people.
All of us need to have thoselife giving people.
Extroverts need more of thoselife giving people oftentimes
because that's such a big partof how they get built up.
And so it, there's differencesthere, but what I find the
biggest difference betweenintroverts and extroverts,

(30:07):
introverts still need thosesocial rest people, but they
like fewer of them and they godeeper with them.
Extroverts need those lifegiving people and they're, they
like a lot of them and they tendto not go as deep with them and
they're good with that.
They just like, like the energyaround those types of those
people.
Yeah.

Yeah.
That one, that one's interestingtoo.
When I think of social, I thinkof there's a lot of
psychological things there, likecodependency, attachment
personalities, where you'relike, Oh, like, I really love
being around this person, but doyou love being around this
person?
Or are you codependent on, onthem?
Or are they codependent on you?
Which, unfortunately, this isn'tsomething that I experienced,

(30:46):
but I, I know people that wouldsay they're in a codependent
relationship.
Their social risk score isprobably high.
Because they're constantlygiving and I'll say Dr.
Sondra and I don't know how thishas gone for you and your family
But as my wife and I have gottenolder with more responsibility
in our life I would say my scorehas gone down here because we've
just gotten rid of the peoplethat just aren't life giving not

(31:07):
getting rid of them But it's gotto feel it's got to feel
symbiotic for both my wife and Ior it's just not worth it
Because if it, and I wish Icould have told myself in my
twenties, I'm like, Hey, if thatperson who calls you up and they
don't even ask you how you'redoing, and all they want to do
is get your advice or get yourproblem solving.
That's when I get tired.
That's when my social rest scorewill go like that.
And, and as an extrovert, I likethe, I like to feel like it's a

(31:29):
give and take.
And so.
I'm curious if people are outthere listening, they're like,
and they take this and they go,Oh, I actually have a pretty
high social risk score.
What is something that a person,what's the first thing you'd
have them look at in terms ofmaybe shifting that?

Yeah.
If they are in a, in a relationintimate relationship with
someone or if they have kids tostart looking at weight, because
that's probably where they'regoing to be spending most of
their time to start looking atways to start to flip those
relationships.
If they become unbalanced.
If they've gotten to a situationwhere they're always giving and
never receiving, I'll give asimple one that I talk about

(32:06):
specifically since most of ushave holidays that come up where
we're giving people gifts,right?
So whether it's Christmas orFather's Day, Mother's Day,
whatever.
So those holidays, we givepeople gifts that they probably
don't want.
They're going to re gift at somepoint anyway, because nobody
needs another tie or, you know,necklace or something.
So what I recommend is make itan opportunity for social rest.

(32:29):
So rather than give them anothergift, how about when you're
sitting around at the dinnertable, you take a moment to
actually say to that person whatit is you admire about them, or
what it is you're proud of themabout, or what it is, why
they're important to you,because that's going to be
pouring back into that part ofthemselves, filling that part of
themselves back up.
And with couples, particularlyif you're in any kind of

(32:51):
relationship as a couple, tothink about, you know, one of
the statistics talked aboutcouples then when they get
together, especially when afterthey're married, they have fewer
time, lesser time that they havetogether where they're actually
looking in each other's eyes.
And when they look into eachother's eyes, it's, you know,

(33:12):
it's usually not for the rightreasons.
They're, it actually showed thatthey typically only are looking
at each other eye to eye whenthey're arguing.

That sounds about, I just hit my 15 year.
That's that, that, thatresonates.

I think, I mean, but we fall in love eye to eye
and then we don't look at eachother until we're fighting after
we get together and so a socialwrestling.
Switch that can happen there isto actually begin to, to foster
eye to eye contact with yourspouse intentionally, you know,
not being weird necessarily, buthaving moments where you

(33:45):
actually look at each other andtalk.
And so I always challengecouples to somewhere in the
middle of your day, ask theother person how they're doing.
When you first do this, they'regonna just say, fine.
And keep walking.
Probably not even having lookedat you.
Yeah.
Put your hand on their shoulder.
Just the mirror.
Act of the touch right after thequestion.
It kind of, it's shocking almostto the system.

(34:07):
They will turn and look at you.
'cause they're thinking, why areyou touching me Even if it's
just, what do you need from me?
Yeah.
It's like, do you need from meright now?
That's exactly right.
It's like, why are you touchingme?
And they'll turn and look at youand eye to eye.
Ask them the question again.
A group of couples to do this.
And it was so funny.
I got a, I got an email from agentleman and he, he was like,

(34:28):
I've never read your book, mywife turned me onto your stuff.
And you know, I, we were doingthis challenge that you, you set
up and we did this and he goes,I've never had more sex.
More conversation with my wifein the past.

Like, where have you been?

He was a fan and he'd never read a thing.
He just spent moments eye to eyewith his wife.

Everybody pay attention to this resonates.
Look your spouse in the eyes andjust gently touch their shoulder
and ask them how they're doing.
This is not rocket science.
My therapist right now would go,yes, I've been telling you this
for years.
Sounds good.
Oh my gosh, Dr.
Sutter, that's so good.
That is great.
So for those of you who, again,I hope everybody takes this quiz
because it's awesome.

(35:14):
And you have a high social restscore.
This one, it sounds to me likethere's some pretty tangible and
actionable things you can get inthis one.
You can likely lower with theperson you're closest to.
That's the fastest path to thehighest return is going to be.
And sometimes it could be yourboss, right?
Your boss or an employee forthose of us who are married or a

(35:34):
child that knew that, that one,that one is so cool.
And then we're going to move toanother one that I never thought
of before.
And this one made me laughbecause this one is called the
sensory rest score, and I'm asensory nut.
Like, I am a musician, I lovelistening to music, I love going

(35:57):
to concerts, I like a lot ofstuff going on around me, I
stare at screens all day, and I,and I live in a house with two
young children, so there's justa lot, a lot of sensory things
going on.
And my sensory rest score wasn'tbad, it's 21, which means
there's rest.
And you're in the, the scoringsystem, there's rest, but I
could thrive with more.

(36:18):
So I'm, I was so excited to talkto you about this.
Cause I'm like, but I love amillion things around me.
So what does this onespecifically mean?

Yes.
You, you nailed it.
It's basically looking at justyour sensory inputs and the
effect that they have on you.
Because what we're finding iswe, we all live in a sensory
rich environment.
Our world is just.
Sensory rich.
And so what we have to look atis what is the effect of all of
that input having on you?
A lot of people, when theybecome sensory overloaded, they

(36:45):
respond with irritation,agitation, rage, or anger.
It's the same thing thathappens.
Like you have small children, soyou take your, you take your
three year old to a birthdayparty.
He's usually good when you firstget there, like an hour and a
half in after the balloons havepopped and all the noise and all
the party stuff.
You know, it's nap time.
Cause they're like, ah, it's.
Everything goes berserk, sensoryoverload syndrome.

(37:08):
The problem is when we'readults, we have the same
response.
We've just learned how not tothrow a temper tantrum.
Usually we just get mean.
And so we're more agitated.
We're more quick, you know,we're more snappy at people and,
and that's the part of it thatwe then have to evaluate.
It's the same reason that roadrage is not a thing.

(37:28):
Typically in the morning it'susually an afternoon because in
the morning you woke up frombed, which actually sleep does
help with sensory overload.
Cause you have six, seven, eighthours of sensory reprieve.
Whereas in the evening you'veheard the phones ringing at your
office, or you've heard theelevator going off, or you've
been on zoom meetings or teammeetings all day, or your

(37:49):
notifications on your phoneshave been binging.
All of this stuff compounds andthen.
Somebody, you know, cut you offand you're honking your horn
because it's ticked you off atthe last moment.

Yeah.
So what's, what's the sciencebehind sensory overload?
Like what, what, what does thescience say about what's
happening in our brain aroundthat?
Because absolutely anybody who'sbeen around a young kid knows
that that happens.
Yeah,

you

know, go ahead.
No, that was it.
I would say yes, of course.

Yeah.
You know, that's the thing.
It's, it's one of thosesituations where most of us
believe that our brain is notprocessing it.
The thing is with sensoryoverload, when we hear these
noises, we usually are alreadyconcentrating on something else.
I'll use an example.
Let's, let's say.
Let's say.
Let's say.
The example of you're sitting ina team, zoom, whatever it is,

(38:38):
virtual meeting, and you got the15 boxes and everybody's got
different screens, right?
Well, you're trying toconcentrate on the person's face
in the middle of chaos.
And you've got all these, yourbrain is having to filter all of
the other inputs to try tonarrow down your attention.
Now.
All of this is donesubconsciously.
It's not like you're thinking,let me focus on this person's

(39:00):
face, but it's having to filterout this other stuff.
Same with, if you're in anoffice space or you're at your
home office and the kids areplaying, you know, that popcorn
popping toy where there's likenonstop noise,

the worst.

And so you're hearing that in the background,
but you tune it out becauseyou're trying to focus on your
work.
Well, your brain is activelyworking.
And when that's nonstop, whathappens is the brain gets
exhausted because it's runninglike this background program to
filter.
All day long.
Sure.
And so sensory rest isbasically, what are the things

(39:36):
you do to give your brain areprieve?
You know, it could be as simpleas having a set of noise
cancellation earphones at youroffice space where you pop them
on for 20 minutes, just to blockout the noise.
If you're a parent with kids,you can put the noise
cancellations on and leave thedoor open.
So you can make sure the kidsaren't killing themselves out
there and just block it out.

(39:56):
And the thing is moments ofsensory reprieve.
Are often enough to reset andgive that kind of that break
that the brain needs to justreset a little bit.
And then there's a lot oftactics.
Like if you do do a lot ofvirtual meetings change the back
screen, have your entire, ifyou're a leader of a team, this
is a simple one.

(40:16):
If you're a leader of a team,give your entire team a virtual
background that is uniform.
So that when you have your teammeetings, you it's as if you're
in an actual room together.
If you were in a room together,there wouldn't be 15 different
screens, you know, colors andthings on the wall.
So just unify it so that it hasmore of a calming effect.

That's that's brilliant.
I do a ton of trainings Virtualtrainings where we're screens of
up to 75 people.
And as the person leading thosetrainings, I'm thinking about it
is, it is interesting to see allthe different backgrounds and I
know I get curious about it andI think I'm probably curious
about it subconsciously, evenwhen I'm like, Nope, I'm, I'm

(40:57):
busy.
I'm busy focusing on leadingthis room.
But my brain somewhere isfiltering out.
Well, that person's in a factoryand that person's, that person's
working from home.
Oh, that's so fascinating.
Had like make it.
So we're all in a room, man.
That, that's a, that's.
See, that's a great example ofsomething that we can all do.
We can all do simple.
We can all do leaders out there.

(41:19):
You want to just try it.
Yeah.
Even like a black background orsomething that's simple.
And, and you know, most of thebigger companies, they have one,
they come up with a virtualbackground of their branding on
it.
So now we're going to move tothe last one in the seven, in
the seven part framework aroundrest scores, and that is your
creative rest score.
And I love this one too, becausefor 42 years of my life, I

(41:42):
related to myself as notcreative, limiting mindset.
And then, about four or fiveyears ago, I cracked that thing
open and I relate to myself aswildly creative.
And my creative rest score waspretty good.
It's definitely in the rest, butcould thrive more.
What are we talking about whenyou say creative rest score?

Yeah, I, I love how you, you began that because I
think this is the one most, alot of people brush off as if,
Oh, I don't need that one.
And then when it comes back, thehighest they're like, I get the
email, what is this?
What do

I do with this?

So yeah, creative rest.
Well, let me begin by, by justsaying, by agreeing with you,
because I feel like that's thething.
So many of us don't think ofourselves as creative because we
think creativity is just.
You're an artist, you're amusician, you're, you know,
whatever, but really all of ususe quite a bit of creative
energy just because problemsolving is a creative process.

(42:41):
So anytime you're having to getschedules to mesh, that's a
creative process, trying tofigure out how, you know, if
you're in graphics or marketing,all of these things, and so we
use a lot of creative energy andwhat creative rest is, it's the
rest or the feeling ofrestoration we experienced when
we allow ourselves to appreciatebeauty and we let.
It birth and ignite creativityand innovation inside of us.

(43:04):
And so this is the number onething I, I now get invited into
companies with when they feellike innovation has ceased.
And it's like, our team saysthey're burned out.
They can't think any greatthoughts anymore.
And we have to discuss what doesit look like to actually ignite
creativity inside of someone?
So there's lots of literaturethat that is coming out because

(43:26):
it's fairly new concept for alot of people.
But one of the things is that.
Over about 70, 60 to 70 percentof people experience creative
rest around bodies of water.
So nature has a tendency to makepeople have this like awe and
wonder experience.
Some do it in the mountains, youknow, everybody's different.
That's the beauty of it with allof these types of rest.

(43:48):
It's different for differentpeople, but then if you don't
get it from nature, then we havethe people who get inspired
through art and music and danceand theater and poetry and all
these different things.
And it's a matter of actuallyhaving people realize the value
of that within their work.
Entrepreneurs.
Use an excessive amount ofcreative energy.

(44:09):
And they're typically the oneswho say, I don't have time for,
for fun.
Well, you're not going to getvery far because you're not
going to be able to thinkgreater thoughts if you don't
have something igniting them.
And so I think it's reallyimportant to see that there's
value in the things thatactually spark and create
creativity inside of you.

So we've gone through the seven step framework
here, and I'm sure there arepeople.
thinking to themselves, this isbrilliant and I'm tired.
So first things first, read thebook.
That's pretty simple because asyou talked about, Dr.
Sandra, you give some thingspeople can do with this.
I'm also going to say, and I'vesaid it a number of times, take

(44:50):
the rest quiz.
It's awesome.
The link for that will be in thepodcast notes.
It's awesome.
So Dr.
Sandra, I think I want to wrapfor now around, where do you see
this field going and what's nextfor you around thinking around
this?
Because like you said, this isnot a, this is not a topic that
a lot of people talk about inthe business world.

(45:11):
Even the medical, I can never, Ican't remember the last time
I've ever gotten to my primarycare physician.
They're like, how was your rest?
They might say, how's yoursleep?
But that like nobody, or theymight say, how are you feeling?
But there's never any like realdigging in on what's actually
going on.
And, and to your point, a lot oftimes when you went through that

(45:31):
for yourself, a lot of times,Hey, I'm tired.
They go do blood tests or, Whichobviously fatigue can be a sign
of serious actual medicalconditions, but it's not always.
So where do you see this fieldgoing and what do you think is,
what, what do you see as likethe next thing, next thing that
might be learning for you andfor your company and then by,
because we're getting to knowyou, that we all get to benefit

(45:52):
from that as well.

Yeah, well, I did a TEDx talk a few years ago and at
the end of the talk, Ichallenged the world to step
over into a rest revolution.
So that's really kind of myfocus because we spent the past,
what, 10 years talking about asleep revolution and we're more
burned out now than ever becausewhat happened is we started
thinking sleep and rest are thesame thing and they're not.

(46:14):
So we have people focusing allof their attention on the
physical component of rest.
And ignoring these other six.
So that's a big part of what I'mdoing.
Trying to change the mindsetaround what rest is.
Getting people to see it asrestorative practices and not
just cessation.
And then on top of that, alsohelping people realize that if,

(46:35):
if we want to have a betterworld, we want to, you know,
have people enjoying their livesand, and have people actually
producing at the highest levelof their capacity.
for having me.
We can't just have a work ethic.
We also must have a rest ethicbecause they work hand in hand
together.

Yeah.
And I want to leave, leave withthis for, it goes back to the
question I had earlier.
Now that we've kind of laidthese out, I'm listening and I'm
a leader of people.
Might be a founder, might have aindividual contributors or
anything in between.
And I know my people are tired.
I worked in sales for 20 years.
You get tired, especially at theend of the quarter when numbers
are happening or You'relistening right now and you are

(47:14):
an administrative at a medicalclinic and you know that your
nurses and your physicians andthe admin staff, they're tired
because it's end of the year.
What's something that as leadersthat have an influence on this,
how can we encourage people orinspire people and support
people to do this forthemselves?
Because I, my experience, Dr.
Sandra is that people are notreliable to do these sorts of

(47:34):
things for themselves.
Yeah.
Because there's a million otherthings, choices we can make.

Yeah, I, I love that.
I, and I would say if you're aleader, then lead, I think part
of, part of it is you have torealize that because they don't
know this, you're going to needto lead by example, so you can't
say.
You need to get more rest or bemore self aware and then you're
not doing it yourself.
There's a level of personalleadership that has to take

(48:03):
effect.
And that begins with theleaders, the CEOs, the managers,
the directors, all of that.
Every time we work with acompany, it tends to begin with
an executive leadership meeting.
Because if you, if the leadersare not on board, you can forget
it.
It's not going to go into acompany culture.
It starts with you and, and itstarts with realizing that.

(48:25):
This isn't something most of youare trained in.
So leave the ego at the door.
You know, it's not, it's notlike you're doing anything
wrong.
You weren't trained in it.
There's permission to learn.
And so as you're learning it,then you can apply it to your
team.
And I think a part of that isjust helping companies
integrated so that the leaderslearn first and step by step, as

(48:48):
you go through these seven, youbegin to layer it out into your
company.

That's beautiful.
Dr.
Sander, thank you so much foryour time, for the brilliant
work you're doing.
It's been a really a pleasure tohave you on and talk about this.
I've done over 200 episodes inthis podcast, and this is the
very first time we've talkedabout rest.
I think in any way other thanlike very basic.
So I just want to likepersonally thank you for the
work you're doing.
It's so cool to see this.
I'm confident that this makes adifference for companies.

(49:13):
And I want, I'm going to leavehere for those who heard her
part about the guy.
Look your spouse in the eye,touch their shoulder and ask
them how they're doing withoutexpecting anything in return.
And you will be amazed.
Ciders, I give nothing else fromthis.
I can guarantee you, this isgoing to go better for you.
So thank you so much for that.
Congratulations, congratulationson everything you've been up to

(49:33):
and you're going to be up tosuch a pleasure.

It's been a joy to be with you.
Thank you.

Thanks Dr.
Sandra.

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Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith - Physician, Author, Speaker, Mom

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith - Physician, Author, Speaker, Mom